Exactly one year ago this minute, I was holding my breath. A woman who had become a dear friend over the months we had shared a a home sat at my kitchen table, clutching her side and trying to look like she wasn’t as far along as she was. The next 90 minutes were like an episode of Amazing Race with the end goal being a brand new baby girl.

And, we won.

We fought against a family planning policy that limited this family to two children or one son {meaning, if the first child was a girl, they were allowed to have a second child to try again for a boy}. We fought against visa limitations that make it hard for women and children to leave the country. We fought against our own selfishness and self-protection and inclination to say mine mine mine with our home and our food and our things.

And, we won. With help from a lot of people, we won. And, as a result, one of the most beautiful little creatures ever created entered the world…here…in the land of the free and the brave…to a mama who is one of the bravest people I know.

Today, that beautiful little creature turns one.

And, she’s just as marvelous as she was then.

 

In October, two days after Grace turned 7 months old, China announced a big change to their family planning policy that had been in effect for three decades. As of the start of 2016, families across the nation would be allowed two children regardless of the children’s gender. Unfortunately, the law is not retroactive. So, Grace is still considered an illegal birth. Despite the fact that she holds U.S. citizenship, in order to register her in China for her ID card so that she can go to school, receive benefits allowed to their citizens, and even buy train tickets, her parents are still being told they will need to pay an exorbitant fine not required for second children born only 9 months after her. We will press on praying for more changes, better changes, and for this child who He’s going to use for big, big things. He already has.

Our last few months of 2014 and first few months of 2015 changed all future China trips for us forever. For 6 months, our single-family home became a double-family home so that a very special little person could start her life without any fear. At about a month old, that little person and all her big people who cared for her returned to China, leaving our home feeling very empty with just the 6 of us.

As the team who joined me at the orphanage headed back to the states, I got on a fast train in Beijing and went to spend a few days in their single-family home where Helen treated me as she would a sister. She made me eggs with tomato and Chinese pancakes and steamed bread—all the things she makes that she knows I like. And, we chatted long into the night about the marriage book I am reading, Drew’s new guitar lessons, Lydia’s gymnastics class, how the older kids are doing in middle school. We also talked about the worries of parenting and adjusting to a new baby, the expectations on them to give “gifts” to Caleb’s kindergarten teachers, and how the neighborhood grandmothers shake their heads at Grace’s disposable diapers and tell Helen she’s lazy for using them instead of traditional split pants. She’s Chinese. I’m American. We’re so very different as are our worlds. Yet, there are so many things that we share and so many places in our hearts that the other is able to encourage. And, no China trip of ours would be complete ever again without at least a few days with Helen and her quiver.

Oh, how I love her little ones who are growing and learning so fast that my heart aches that I’m missing it all when I’m across the ocean. Gracie girl is so big and smiley and vocal, not at all that sleepy little baby who at one time lived here. And, Caleb seems inches taller and definitely more grown up now that he’s an official schoolboy.

The day I left to return home, I got up early to see Caleb before they took him to kindergarten at 7:30am. Right before they left, they gathered in a circle and held hands and asked me to join them and lift up him and his day of school. When I thanked them for inviting me into that, they said, “Of course we would. We only started doing that because we learned it from your family. There’s so much we learned from you.”

When you live so closely with others, truly living in community with others, they get to see it all. And, it’s not all pretty. In fact, most of it is not pretty at all. What a blessing to me to know that they took away something so beautiful despite our frailty. What a blessing.

You may be able to tell that snoop dog Caleb has some big news, folks.

The boy who cried if someone called him little and when I suggested that I wanted to put him in a shrinking machine so that I could make him small forever and carry him around with me wherever I went is now a state-fortified big boy. He started kindergarten today.

And, from Helen’s email in my inbox this morning, it kinda seems like the day was a bit harder on her and Frank than Caleb.

Very likely, Helen is one of the best homeschooling mothers in the world. At 4 1/2, Caleb already reads and speaks two languages. I’m not exaggerating to make a point. He really does. He also craves being with people which isn’t always easy for his mama as they live on the 8th floor of an apartment building on the edge of a pretty big city where all the other children his age have been in school full-time since they were 3.

So, today was his first day, a day that started at 7:30am and ended at 5pm as it will go from now on. And, despite his complaints that the bathroom with only squatty potties smelled bad and the music for morning exercises was too loud, it sounded like he did pretty well. He told Helen he’d be okay with using only squatties there, embracing them as character builders. He told her, “I will use it. This is how you learn endurance.”

That boy.

Sounds like Frank and Helen will be learning a few things too as they start a new season of life as parents of a little…I mean, big boy…Chinese student.

Frank and I had a hard day. It feels so quiet at home. It seems the day is so long for us.

Long, hard days while your first child goes to school for the first time apparently is universal. {sigh} #wasitreally9yearsagoforme?